Just some thoughts about the recent Indiegogo campaign for the film Vakhtangov and the Russian Theatre which is part of the Russian theatre Film Series.The campaign didn’t reach its goal by a long way but it taught me a great deal about the way I make films and the way I have been making them over the past ten years or so. First of all the experience connected me with a lot of people on the internet through Twitter and through other social network sites. In some ways it raised my game in this sphere and raised my awareness of the possibilities of using the internet to further ones film making goals and project. I was also very appreciative of the support and interest which people showed in particular the director/writer/producer David Baker (City of Sin Universe) and the actor Andrew Elias. I will be thanking everybody who supported me on this site and the main Vakhtangov site in the near future.

What I learned however is this is not necessarily the only  way for me to raise finance for my films. I’m not saying I wouldn’t go down the crowd funding route again but the project would have to be more tailored to such a task. The other thing to mention is that the films I make are quite specific and niche orientated. They have an audience and they can be located and reached out to but they don’t necessarily want to be involved in the film through crowd funding. I may be wrong about this but I think its a fair guess. Still I was glad I tried it and the experience I attained through mistakes I made and knowledge gained will not be lost. The crowd funding campaign was largely meant to raise funds for locations, in particular the Vakhtangov Museum and access to archives and other materials and locations.

During the period of the campaign I decided to take the bull by the horns and approach the Vakhtangov Museum practically empty handed so to speak. In this I was aided by a friend of my wife who introduced me to a valuable contact. They in turn introduced me to the administration of the Vakhtangov Museum. Luckily the people at the museum, which is owned by the Vakhtangov Theatre, responded extremely positively to the project and made the location available and more. There was a certain amount of back and forward discussions between all parties but an agreement was reached and I was able to go ahead and gain access to some superb material, some of which has never been seen anywhere  This consisted in documents, photographs, letters and other artefacts connected with Vakhtangov all unique and rare.

The point of all this is – how does one create value in a film? Is it directly with money or through other means or a bit of both? Making a documentary film entails a bit of both but the most important thing is establishing relationships with people. In some ways you can’t buy that and it goes a long way in making a project work better and creating value in a film.  Rex Sikes discusses this at some length in his blogtalk show with Nicholas Tabarrok. 

If anything the experience of crowd funding has reinforced that understanding for me, something which I had been aware of and had practised but needed to reaffirm.